Glenn Brown (survey): Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio

In this piece Brown conflates modern and historical references much like he does in The Great Queen Spider – conjuring Star Dust from a fusion of works by French Rococo painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) and American post-Pop artist Jeff Koons (b.1955). The former’s 1770 painting Young Girl Holding Two Puppies provides the basic composition for this work with Brown choosing to alter the accompanying color scheme according to the Fauvist palette of Russian-German expressionist Alexej von Jawlensky (1864-1941). When the puppies’ original shade of brown is switched to blue here, Brown subsequently references the controversial 1988 Koons sculpture String of Puppies which was prosecuted for copyright infringement. And while Koons has employed the puppy to great artistic and financial reward in his practice, it nevertheless remained a surprise to Brown that Koons owns the very painting by Fragonard that he references in Star Dust. Yet rather than chasing a cynical sentimentality in this painting like Koons does in his canine sculptures, Brown purposefully paints his female protagonist with clouded eyes as if she had severe cataracts. In the process he references a practice employed by renowned historical painters like Matisse, Cezanne and Modigliani to de-personalize the subject and turn the attention back to the author. Even as this protagonist appears to nurture her sickly pets, by wresting away the spotlight from painted subject to painter, Brown speaks to the ego-centric underpinnings of “mentors” and muses across the history of art. A glimmer of redemption arrives in the title which is drawn from the lyrics of Canadian songstress Joni Mitchell’s 1970 song “Woodstock.” Pursuing a place to find greater purpose and belonging in the hallows of old, she writes: “We are stardust; Billion year old carbon; We are golden; Caught in the devil's bargain; And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.”

– Steven Matijcio, Curator, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, USA